An interpreter stands alongside murder-accused Tingjun Cao in the Christchurch High Court on 21 October. Photo: Stuff/Ian McGregor
Complications related to interpretation have disrupted court proceedings in the trial of a Chinese national over the alleged murder of Christchurch real estate agent Yanfei Bao.
Chinese national Tingjun Cao, 53, is currently on trial in the Christchurch High Court for the 44-year-old's murder in July 2023. He has pleaded not guilty.
The trial started on 21 October and is expected to last six weeks.
However, court proceedings since the trial commenced have been punctuated by delays due to several translation issues.
On the opening day of the trial, the jury selection process was pushed back after some administrative notices related to translation were announced.
Translation issues also delayed the start of the trial's second day.
Ineke Crezee, a professor of translation and interpretation at Auckland University of Technology, says it can be hard to translate metaphors in a court setting. Photo: Supplied
Ineke Crezee, a professor of translation and interpretation at Auckland University of Technology, said any delays would increase court costs, but it was important to translate the evidence presented at the trial accurately.
Court interpreters typically need to juggle the challenges of translating carefully crafted legal statements, working through material at pace without additional information and dealing with real-time court pressures, said Crezee, who also works as a court interpreter.
"One of the problems is that judges, defence lawyers [and] prosecution lawyers ... take great care in formulating what they want to say, and then the interpreter is there on the spot without much preparation," Crezee said.
"It is very difficult to get your head around what is being said, what is being asked and how do I now put that into another language ... in such a way that I've got the entire intent and force."
Crezee said it was especially hard to translate sentences that included metaphors that sometimes emerged in court testimony.
"People talk about accuracy, but they forget that social linguistic customs come into this as well," she said. "There's a lot of skills required in court interpreting."
The nature of the court process meant that translators were often interpreting information that was being presented without knowledge of either legal teams' case.
"They are given the absolute bare minimum of information ... which makes it even more difficult," she said.
Wei Teng, who teaches translation and interpretation at the University of Canterbury, says an awareness of cultural differences is important when translating in a court setting. Photo: Supplied
Wei Teng, who teaches translation and interpretation at the University of Canterbury and was Crezee's PhD student, said interpreters should focus on contextual translations instead of trying to produce a literal translation.
"[Translators shouldn't] get stuck by the semantic meanings of words or the literal meaning of words," he said. "Otherwise, [they] might ignore or neglect the contextual meanings of words or messages."
Teng said it was important to understand cultural differences between two places when offering translation or interpretation services.
Crezee said plenty of translators operated in New Zealand, but it was sometimes difficult to find interpreters for languages spoken by smaller communities.
She said court interpreters in New Zealand were now expected to meet an Australian standard recently adopted by the government.
However, Crezee said it was difficult to obtain the National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters (NAATI) and a long wait list existed for testing.
From 1 July, government agencies were expected to use interpreters with NAATI credentials and, if none were available, an interpreter who was working towards this certification, according to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE).
Andrew Lockhart, manager of refugee and migrant services at MBIE, said no set standards for interpretation qualifications existed in New Zealand before this change.
"With NAATI credentials, government agencies can now confidently choose interpreters who consistently show high skill levels in real-life situations and have demonstrated a strong understanding of the ethics of interpreting," Lockhart said.
He said MBIE acknowledged some individuals weren't able to complete tests for the new standards in time, with allowances made where possible.
Interpreters who had registered with the government's Interpreter Standards Transition Support package, which provides financial assistance to help people obtain their NAATI accreditation, were given until 30 June 2025 to complete accreditation, Lockhart said.
Interpreters who did not enroll in the package could finance their own training and testing to obtain accreditation, he said.
Isabelle Poff-Pencole, president of the New Zealand Society of Translators and Interpreters, said the profession was "very difficult", with court interpreters needing more support and remuneration.
"Having the proper and complete case material before you come to interpret is vital for the accurate and professional rendition of testimonies or anything that is said in the court into another language," she said. "If you don't have this information, it is very difficult to know everything in advance."
Poff-Pencole said interpreters usually earned around $65 an hour, not counting any time spent on preparation, if they were employed by the Justice Ministry on a contract basis.
If they were recruited for translation through a language-service provider, the remuneration was likely to be less, she said.
Poff-Pencole called on the Justice Ministry to review the conditions that court interpreters worked in.
"We are a profession, and we have a code of conduct and a code of ethics to abide by and deliver professional interpreting services for such low remuneration is a major problem affecting the profession at the moment," she said.
The Christchurch High Court told RNZ that five weeks had initially been set aside for the trial when Cao made his first appearance last year.
Since then, an additional week has been added to the schedule to allow for translation delays.
Carl Crafar, chief operating officer at Justice Ministry, said four court-appointed Mandarin interpreters had been booked to cover this trial.
"This is subject to change, depending on the needs of the court and the parties of the proceedings," Crafar said.
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